And Who by Power
by Hagar
Summary: NS. AU based off of Return of Thunder: what if the Rangers failed to break the memory warp on Hunter? Ends well, but read warnings!
1. Kyrie Eleison

_1. Stand-alone story, three chapters. The last one is still in beta, but the story's essentially complete. I've been studiously ignoring a - _sterner_ version of this one until it practically showed up in a nightmare so, no, this one is probably one that demands a flashlight and a kitten, and is not recommended for reading after dark.  
_

_2. **Warnings:**** psychological torture, mentions of physical torture, hints of non-con** (no, nobody's getting raped or even more than mildly fondled),** more than mild swearing.**_

_3. **Credits:** Story title off of Leondard Cohen's song _And Who in Fire_, which in turn is a rendition of the Hebrew Atonement Day prayer _Unetane Tokeff_; the moto for this chapter as for further chapters is from the Lord's Prayer; chapter title for this chapter is from a prayer common in some Christian denominations, and translates approximately as "Lord, have mercy" or "Lord, who is merciful."_

_4. **Thanks:** first and foremost to Camille and Mara Aoife, friends and beta readers; and also to the friendy people of the LJ community Little Details

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**1. Kyrie eleīson**

_Thy will be done…

* * *

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The whisper of chilly air against his skin was the first thing Shane noticed when he woke up. Then came the pain – all over, both sharp and dull, like bruises and exhaustion with the sting of burns on top – the unyielding hardness of the surface he was lying on, and recollection. Shane's breath stopped at that, muscles seizing in an instinct to run. He opened his eyes and sat up, too keyed up with panic to register the pain. His left hand grabbed his right automatically, but his morpher was gone.

It was dark. Not pitch black, but enough that he could barely make out any details. There were walls; there were two objects, one approximately one foot tall and under half a foot wide and the other much smaller, next to one of the walls; the faint directionless light seemed to be coming from above – the room was so tall he couldn't see the ceiling, or perhaps that was because of the darkness. Shane put his palm down against the floor. Metal, smooth. He got on his hands and feet and began to carefully explore the room, all the while keeping an ear out.

No one came.

The walls were all metal, too. There was no hint of a door anywhere, though Shane spent what was probably hours feeling every inch. He did find what was probably a lavatory. The two objects he'd spotted upon waking were a full pitcher and a glass. Both were made of plastic, round-edged and unbreakable: there would be no easy way to turn them into a tool or a weapon. To make it even more irritating, whenever he emptied the pitcher it disappeared from his hands and appeared a few seconds later, full again.

Eventually he gave up and tried a sip. It tasted like diluted juice, with no chemical aftertaste, but Shane had no illusions that that meant anything. Still, as time passed and he did not feel drugged, he decided that perhaps the juice was safe. It even made sense, in a perverse sort of way: he was trapped alone in a room with no exits without access to teleportation, without his morpher, presumably on Lothor's spaceship. Tori, Dustin and Blake were probably dead. Cam hadn't contacted them since they arrived on the damn island, and possibly had no idea where they had disappeared to or what had happened. Shane was alone and captive.

He punched the wall just because he could.

* * *

He should've listened to Tori when she said that Lothor had to have messed up Hunter and Blake. Maybe if he'd listened to her right away, if they'd started looking for the two Thunders sooner… it probably wouldn't have made a difference. Choobo would've still shown up; the toxic geysers would've still gone off. Well, maybe Hunter wouldn't have stumbled straight into one of them but with the damn things being everywhere underfoot and Hunter as crazed as he was, that would've probably happened anyway.

Getting the guys out was probably the right call, though. They were too off-balance, all of them, and Blake in particular. They needed to get their heads together. Shane was relatively certain that he'd done well leading them to the cave. Not going after Hunter wasn't an option at that stage – they couldn't just hand Hunter over to Lothor – and they had gotten on the move as soon as Blake was stable on his feet again, so that wasn't when things went wrong either.

By the time Blake demorphed in the middle of the battle – what was he thinking, that the sight of him would punch through Lothor's brainlock when a second before Hunter had just screamed that he didn't have a brother? – things had most definitely gone wrong. Maybe that moment was the point of no return, maybe that moment had been weeks or months before; and maybe there had never been one big wrong call that doomed them all but a series of minimally suboptimal ones.

Maybe it was unpreventable, but that was not a thought Shane could afford.

Next thing he knew, Hunter had screamed again and Blake was lying on the sand a few feet from where he'd been, blood soaking into the sand next to his head. Shane hadn't been standing next to Tori so he could do nothing but shout in warning as she launched herself at Hunter. He and Dustin were only a second behind her, but by the time they reached Hunter he'd already tossed Tori aside and she'd demorphed in smoke and a pained cry.

She had still been twitching. That had been Dustin's mistake: he ran towards her, turning his back on Hunter, and Shane couldn't turn aside Hunter's hand.

In retrospect, Shane knew that he hadn't been thinking straight. The sight of Blake's blood was the worst shock of his life until Tori's fall a few seconds later. When Dustin fell he'd – it was as if he'd forgotten. His brain refused to acknowledge what the three prone bodies meant, refused to get that he was already on his own. He had to win, that much he knew, and winning was defeating Hunter without killing him; everything else was a blur. Maybe that last mad adrenaline rush was the reason his body seemed to hurt so much more as Hunter finally slammed him against a rock; or maybe he'd given Hunter a hell of a fight.

Not that it mattered. Hunter had gotten a hold of Blake's thunder staff as well as his own, and the combined voltage made Shane demorph and gave him his first burns. After that it was child's play for Hunter to beat him down, and the elemental shock of thunder and lightning left him limp and helpless in Hunter's arms.

He couldn't even support his own head.

"Open your eyes."

Shane just shut them harder.

"I said, open your eyes."

Hunter had to have directly hit a nerve or a dozen. Shane writhed, trying – and only partially succeeding – in holding back a scream, and opened his eyes. He'd already lost. It wasn't worth the pain.

He was looking straight at Hunter, who was still morphed but with his visor open. Hunter leaned against him, holding him in place with his weight. The touch of his hand on Shane's chin was disturbingly light as he turned Shane's head.

Turned him so he could see – had to see – the three bodies. The stain of blood behind Blake's head was alarmingly large; Tori was covered in soot, for crying out loud; Dustin, too, was motionless.

He wanted to close his eyes, avert his gaze and grant himself just one more second. Only for a split second, though: then he knew that he'd failed them, he'd failed them all, and acknowledging it was all that was left for him to do.

Hunter turned his head back: gently, so gently.

"Do you understand?" he asked.

Shane blinked away tears – he would not break down and cry – and said nothing.

Hunter shifted Shane's chin to his left hand and used his right to hold Shane's cheek, thumb caressing across the bone.

"Do you understand?" he asked again, hint of a threat in the low tone.

Shane's lips moved but no sound came out. His throat was too tight. Hunter was in his face, but he could still see the afterimage of –

He tried to look away from Hunter and Hunter assisted him with that, allowing him to look at the bodies again.

"Just so we're clear," said Hunter, and Shane could feel his breath, warm and moist, on his face.

He thought it had already hit him but it did so again, and Shane's body convulsed as he nearly threw up. His eyes were still stinging. This was it. Nothing was left, just him and Hunter and –

And fuck, but Hunter wouldn't have done any of that if he'd remembered the truth. If he hadn't been the first one to fall.

Hunter still had a pulse.

He didn't resist as Shane turned again to look at him, just held his face between his hands. It was becoming more disconcerting with every heartbeat: for a single second, one infitintely long and insane second, Shane wanted to close his eyes and rest, right as Hunter was holding him.

He pushed that back ruthlessly and said, trying for his last chance to do anything right: "Hunter – please, don't – Choobo lied – "

Everything went dark.

* * *

The walls of his prison were so smooth that they wouldn't tear the skin of the back of his hand, even long after he'd bruised it. He had no shoes so his feet bruised too, eventually. It made him crawl to the pitcher, once, as his feet just hurt too damn much, but after that he'd forced himself to walk. It seemed like all he had left.

He had no way to tell time. His inner clock gave out even before the first time he fell asleep – he didn't even know how long he'd been awake – and then it wasn't long before he'd even lost count of the number of times he fell asleep and awoke again. He only slept in fits and bursts anyway, waking up gasping for air, reaching out or pushing back from people who were never there.

The screams started before that.

If they'd started later – when he'd already lost even the notion of what a sense of time was like, when he was so hungry that he had to grab for balance every fifth step or so – then he would've figured them for hallucinations. They started within his first three waking periods, though, and he still had some trust in his sanity then.

Tori's voice, sleepy and confused at first and then terrified, begging: "No, Hunter! No, please! Not my – " and then it was just pain for a long while, and Shane made himself bleed, his fingers digging deep into his flesh, until finally it turned into sobs.

It had to be a feint, a trick designed to make him hurt and mess with him. She'd died. Hunter had electrocuted her to death. There were charred spots on her body, for god's sake.

When the second recording started, when he'd heard her pleading "Not again!" and demanding to know what became of the others, if they were even alive, Shane realized that Lothor had space travel, and teleportation, and the fucking ability to make living things grow to the size of skyscrapers, and Tori could've been just badly wounded and if Hunter had wanted her alive –

He nearly tore his throat dry-heaving for hours after the first time he spontaneously thought that it would've been better if she'd died instantly. Then he hit the wall again and tried to smash the pitcher multiple times at the sound of Blake pleading with his brother, at Dustin trying to reason.

He refused to let himself scream or howl, to let the fuckers have any sound they could use to torment his friends.

* * *

He stopped drinking after that fit of rage. He was already so weak with hunger that even the stretching exercises were almost too much for him and his head swam nearly constantly. How long did it take until a person died of hunger? A week, ten days maybe? He couldn't remember. Thirst was much quicker, he was sure of that, and it felt as if he was already halfway there, judging by the constant tremors from exhaustion and the cold. He lay down with his back to the wall on the opposite side of the room from where he'd left the pitcher and the glass, stared into the darkness and thought of his family. He'd actually nearly forgotten them in his first few waking periods: he was too busy doing crazy shit like trying to dig through solid metal with his nails. So he thought of his father, who never spoke to him of anything other than his unsatisfactory grades and how he should spend less time at the skating ramp, but still put his hand on Shane's shoulder and never asked any questions when Shane had had a bad day; of his mother, who sometimes seemed to never be home, even on weekends, but still somehow paid enough attention to know how he liked his pizza; of the days Parker would take him out to the amusement park or the beach, before he went to college and turned serious like their parents and disappeared. He thought of trying to hit Tori in third grade and her hitting him back harder, thought of detentions with Dustin and even Cam's permanent frown. Of Sensei threatening to expel them and then giving them morphers without batting an eye.

He kept pushing back images of still bodies and blue eyes filled with mirthless laughter. He couldn't even open his eyes, anymore, and any thought could be his last. He wanted to pass out for the last time thinking of something happy.

* * *

He had no idea what his last coherent thought had been. The next time he woke up he was so far from lucid that he hadn't even realized it. His head was lying on something soft and there was something warm and heavy across his shoulder. It took a few moments to decipher, though the haze, that his head was in someone's lap and that was someone's arm on him, someone's fingers in his hair. He did know that something bad had happened, but he couldn't remember what it was. He wasn't so cold being held, though, and the touch felt fond. The sound he made was between a sigh and exhalation, not entirely voluntary.

"You awake?"

The voice scared him, though he couldn't remember why: he knew it was wrong, and his body scrounged up some adrenaline somehow. But he was warm and comfortable, and did not want to move.

A hand pressed down lightly, "Shane?"

He mumbled something noncommittal, just so the other person would know he was awake.

"You're going to have to sit."

Sitting wasn't hard, it was nearly impossible. He hadn't been this weak since –

Hunter. He hadn't been this weak since Hunter had captured them all. He'd tried to dehydrate himself to death to escape the very person who was currently stroking him.

He made a token struggle, an attempt to get away or at least telegraph his disagreement with the situation, but Hunter's fingers settled between his scalp and his neck and he just couldn't.

"I could leave," Hunter suggested quietly.

"No," mumbled Shane before he even knew what he was saying. He was already coherent enough to know that this had to be the point of leaving him alone in the darkness, so that when the time came – no. He wouldn't have begged Lothor to stay, no matter how long he'd been left on his own. This was still Hunter, who should've been one of theirs, one of Shane's.

"No," he repeated, fingers trying to clutch the fabric of Hunter's pants.

"Okay," said Hunter. "You're going to have to sit up, though."

Shane didn't struggle. Hunter pulled him up and rested him against his own body, holding him close. It didn't matter that Shane knew, intellectually, that it was a deliberate ploy. It felt good and safe, like everything Shane had tried so hard to recall when he thought he was dying. It felt like coming home.

Hunter reached for something which Shane couldn't see – he was yet to open his eyes – but a second later he could smell.

Oh god, food.

He didn't fight the first spoonful of soup. Hunter had to still him, remind him to sip it slowly, that his body wasn't used to it anymore. It took some time before Shane remembered that he'd wanted to die and he really should stop eating, that he was playing into his enemy's hands –

"I'm not gonna let you die."

"I don't have to eat."

"That's what tubes and needles are for."

"I could hurt myself."

"Not in any way that would seriously endanger you."

"I haven't bashed my head into walls yet."

"Don't you think I'll tie you down?" Hunter didn't sound angry or condescending, just plain amused, and he squeezed Shane's shoulder lightly. "Eat your soup."

Shane must have still been mostly out of it, because he did.

* * *

The next time Shane woke up he wasn't aching, and he wasn't lying on metal either but on something a little softer. When he opened his eyes he discovered he was still in the same prison, with the same damn pitcher by the far wall. He was, however, lying on a mattress. Thin – but hell, it was a mattress, and after a week of lying on the metal…

Shane closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, willing himself to not feel grateful.

He was far too lucid considering he'd been starved for at least a week.

He opened his eyes again and sat up. He pressed down anywhere that a bruise had been, but there was nothing. Even the skin where he'd been burned – in what already felt like another lifetime – was whole and smooth. His muscles weren't aching. Apparently he'd been healed and also given some IV. Definitely not real food, because the only part of him that still hurt was his stomach.

Hunter hadn't been kidding about the damn needles.

Shane leaned back against the wall, and tried to figure out a way to escape.

* * *

He thought it took him less time to crash the second time, though he hadn't tried to help it along this time. Apparently whatever treatment he received while he was under hadn't restored him to full capacity, just refueled him for a few more days. Hell, maybe he hadn't even been lucid the first time he awoke After – maybe he'd forgotten what it felt like. It wouldn't have surprised him.

He was more certain that Hunter would come for him than he'd been certain of anything in his life, save maybe that the sun would always rise the next day. So he lay down and closed his eyes before he reached that stage where he was going to pass out if he moved. He could still feel the ghost touch of snuggling against Hunter whenever he got cold, as much as he tried pushing other memories to the front. Maybe he was going to lose, but he wanted to hold on to his own mind for as long as he could.

He wasn't surprised, then, by the sound of teleportation though he'd left the pitcher full, or by the sound of steps across the room. He was part grateful and part disappointed when Hunter didn't reach out to touch him, though, and startled enough to open his eyes when Hunter said, "You didn't even ask me if they're alive."

He sat up too fast and Hunter had to catch him. Shane caught the reflection of light off of teeth – a smile.

"They are," Hunter continued, hands resting against Shane's arms. "Tori isn't as pretty anymore, though, which Blake's gonna find out when he sees her. Which is going to be right before I finally kill him."

Shane pushed off Hunter's hands, stood up, tried to get away and fell.

Hunter caught him and, instead of laying him down, pulled him in.

Shane tried to push him away. Not that he stood a chance. He wasn't as helpless as the first time but he still couldn't stand on his own.

"Fuck you," he spat into Hunter's shoulder.

The bastard had the cheek to pet his back.

"As you didn't ask," he continued, as if Shane had said nothing, "I figured I'll tell you anyway."

"I hate you."

"No, you really don't." Hunter's hands returned to Shane's shoulders, and he laid him down. "So, I'll give you some more time to think it over and I'll be back later, yeah?"

And then it came, finally, the damn fingers, like Hunter had any right to try and comfort Shane and damn himself, but he could feel his body relaxing at the touch.

Two seconds before he would've told Hunter he was mad. Instead, he said, "That's not really you. Lothor – "

Hunter shut him up: simply held his jaw shut, and he didn't even have to use considerable force to do it. "That won't do," he said. "Like I said, I'm going to leave now. I don't know if you can still lift the pitcher so I'll leave the glass next to you. Don't make anything worse than it has to be."

* * *

Hunter let him slip further this time. Maybe it was some stupid sort of punishment for Shane getting him to come while he could still argue. He wanted to argue anyway as Hunter held him, he even managed to get the first syllable through even though he seriously wanted to just fall asleep like that, warm and not alone, but then Hunter's lips brushed against his temple and he squeezed Shane's shoulders.

Shane had been alone and cold and starving in the dark for close to two weeks, it was the only excuse he had for crying on Hunter's shoulder.

"Just stop it," he whispered. "Please."

"Stop what?"

"Just let me – please, not again."

"You can't even bring yourself to say the word. I'm not going to let you die, Shane."

"Fuck off."

"Do you really want me to?"

Shane bit his lower lip until he bled, and forced out, "Yes."

Hunter unloaded him from his arms before Shane even caught up. He reached out without conscious thought –

Hunter huffed in amusement and settled down again. "Yeah, right."

"That's not fair."

"That's life, Shane. It's not fair," said Hunter lightly. "I'm not even sure it's fairer than death. I mean, I lost my family twice before I turned fully legal. How's that? Hey, don't cry," he continued. "It's not worth it. Okay, how about this? I won't leave you alone in the dark again."

"Liar."

"Really, Shane. You should know better than that by now."

* * *

He woke up in a different room. This room was still metal but white and well-lit and it had an actual _shower. _On the downside, he was naked. There wasn't even a towel, just a hot air vent. He ignored the shower for the time it took him to empty three pitchers – which used to account for about one waking period, before he started sipping the juice just because he was bored. The shower felt stupidly good. So did the light, once it stopped hurting.

Before he found out – he should've realized it from the first moment – that the lights wouldn't go off. He was more exhausted than he knew it was possible to be, and still he couldn't fall asleep.

That was when the hallucinations started.

Tori wasn't first. It wasn't even someone of his family. It was Blake.

He was sitting on the floor, arms tied to the wall with manacles above his head level. Every visible patch of his skin was purple and blue – except for the few that were yellowish – and his lip was split. His nose had apparently been broken. The dried blood caked on his face. "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded. "You get to actually move around on your own, do you even know what that means? You get to still know what it feels like to walk. And you're giving up! You're too easy, have been so all along, that's why he's kept you. You were even stupid enough to think he'd give any of us an easy out like dying. I know him better than that. I could've done something if I had your chance but when he comes to see me it's just to beat me down again, and show me 3D video of what he's done to Tori. Has he shown that to you? No? Probably think he's going to get you to do what he wants anyway. I could've done it, which is why he didn't give me the chance; or why Lothor didn't let him, it's practically the same thing now."

Shane tried to protest – or maybe he did – but the illusion of Blake kept going on. Maybe it wasn't even an illusion. Maybe it was real, like the recorded screams. If it really was Blake, Shane couldn't fault him.

Tori looked – she still carried the burns from the last battle, and they hadn't healed clean. Also, Hunter had to have spilled acid or something on her, and he had to have used a lot and with no particular care: one of her eyes was milky and unseeing. Shane was off the mattress and kneeling by her before she finished taking a look around the room.

She wasn't real; or if she was, she wasn't really there.

"Shane? Is that you?"

"I'm sorry," he choked out. "God, Tori, I'm so – "

"Never mind, Shane. It doesn't matter now. Nothing does." She closed her eyes. "We're dead anyway, right?"

"No, we're not! Tori – "

"We died that day on the island," she continued, as if she hadn't hear him. "The people we were – Shane, Tori, the Rangers – we're dead. They're dead, have been for a while now. I mean, I remember being Tori. But I'm just "bitch" now. I remember doing things, I remember school and surfing and sparring, but that's all gone and it's never coming back. I can't even decide on my own when to sit and when to lie down, when to eat and when to sleep. There's nothing left. I'm dead, I'm just waiting for my body to follow."

He kept trying to hold her and coming up with air. He was crying so hard everything was blurry. God, she was – he had no idea – he'd forgotten, or he'd never realized, that it could be so much worse for them than it was for him. Hunter had been easy on him, giving him a steady drinking supply, relative freedom and no torture. He'd even forgotten he had been so afraid of that, in the first few days: after that time he had dehydrated himself on purpose he started taking the lack of beating for granted.

He fell asleep with Dustin's voice pleading with Shane to kill him, please.

* * *

It got a little better after that, but not by much. His body wouldn't get used to the light, and he definitely wasn't restored to pre-starvation physical condition. He didn't so much dehydrate himself as he just forgot to drink, sometimes. He forgot to stretch. He forgot to sing silly songs and dredge up childhood memories, doodle with his juice, everything he used to do to pass the time. Sometimes he slept and sometime he didn't, and he seemed to always have nightmares. Sometimes he wasn't even sure that he woke where he'd last been conscious, and he comforted himself by reminding himself sternly that Hunter wouldn't come without making sure Shane was aware of it.

He hallucinated – or was treated to holographic videos – a few more times, but it was never about Hunter. Hunter was real in the same way that the walls and the pitcher were, and in which everything else had stopped being. It frightened him that he could hardly remember. He wasn't going to last long if he couldn't remember what real life felt like, what sunlight and sky looked like, what health and laughter were like.

What being held by anyone but Hunter felt like.

* * *

The next time Hunter showed up, Shane buried his face in his shoulder and said, "Get me out of here."

For a moment, Hunter hadn't moved.

Then Hunter hugged him close, fierce, as if he'd found Shane after a long time and would not let him go. "How sure are you?"

"Just get me out of here. I can't take the light, it's even worse."

Hunter pressed harder for a second. "You promise you won't do anything stupid?"

"Yes."

"I mean it, Shane."

"Yes. I just can't – " His voice broke.

"All right." Hunter picked him up – held him as if he weighed nothing – and then there was a flash of light, and they were somewhere else. Hunter laid him down – was that a bed? An actual bed? – and covered him, and turned off the lights – Shane choked out a sound of relief – and his fingers kept running through Shane's hair and down his neck to his shoulders, kneading through the thin knots of his leftover flesh. "It's all right. It's going to be all right now, Shane."

Shane didn't quite believe him.

* * *

He woke up to a blinding flash of light and an explosion. Hunter shouted, sat up – only then Shane realized that Hunter had been lying next to him – and turned on the lights.

There was a Ranger in the room, and he was wearing green. Maybe it was the unexpected colour that made Hunter hesitate long enough for the Ranger to shoot him.

It was Shane's turn to scream as Hunter fell back on the mattress, unconscious or –

"Shane!" The Ranger said sharply. "It's all right, damn it!"

The voice – Shane blinked –

"Did you – "

"Yes, this _is_ me, thank you – "

"Is he dead?" demanded Shane.

"Yes. No, of course not," snapped the Ranger. "You're gonna get up and get dressed now? We're going to teleport you down, and you want to be decent for – "

The voice and the attitude finally clicked.

"Cam?" Shane pushed from under the blankets.

"No, it's your fairy godmother."

Shane froze momentarily.

Cam's whole posture softened. "Yeah, it's really me. We really have to get going, Shane. Get dressed."

Shane just stared around the room.

"Oh, for crying out – " Cam located what turned out to be a wardrobe, opened it and tossed some clothes at Shane. "You do remember how to dress yourself, right?"


	2. Footprints in the Sand

_1. Warnings for this chapter: (non-graphical) mentions of torture, still with the hints on non-con situations, extensive post-trauma study and shifting mental states. _

_2. Thanks: to Mara and Camille, friends and beta readers; and to Sol, who refered me to the poem that provided this chapter's name._

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**2. Footprints in the Sand**

_…on earth as it is in heaven._

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* * *

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Later Sensei would have to tell him what had happened, because Shane hadn't retained much. He remembered Tori, skinny and terrified and filthy and cut and bruised all over and looking so much better than she had in his hallucinations; Dustin pale as chalk and speaking what seemed like nonsense at an unintelligible speed; Blake, unconscious, and weren't they lucky that Marah – crying and chattering and reaching out only to recoil – stole what seemed to be half the medbay, along with their morphers; Sensei's warm weight in his palm; Cam loud and hovering with fear and anger.

And that Cam only snapped more when Shane demanded to know about Hunter.

* * *

All of them slept badly and little. Shane and Tori were plied with Ensure and protein shakes as they vehemently refused IVs, but Tori was eventually talked into using the dermal regenerator. Cam would not let anyone out of sight of him or his cameras and would not say that Hunter was fine, no thanks for asking, until Blake awoke. They wouldn't appreciate Sensei's efforts in handling them all for a while more.

* * *

Cam released them home on the third day. The story was that they'd been kidnapped by the alien forces in an attempt to add them to the collection of foot soldiers and that they'd been rescued by the Rangers: Cam had used holographic projectors and voice synthesizers to hide the three-week absence of their Ranger identities.

It was enough of a shock to find both his parents' cars home at daytime. Parker's presence Shane had no idea how to react to.

"I have two years' worth of paid leave," his older brother said, standing in their parents' kitchen. "And I negotiated the rest."

Parker had barely been home for Christmas since he graduated college. Shane had no idea what to expect.

"Mom dug up a night light," said Parker that night, leaning on the doorframe of Shane's room.

"What for?" asked Shane. He realized the answer before he finished the question.

"Thought you might be not like the dark," said Parker, a little awkwardly. "The Rangers said – "

"The light was worse," said Shane.

Parker blinked. "All right," he said after a moment.

Shane nodded and turned to bed.

"Want me to stay?" asked Parker.

Shane stopped, closing his eyes. "Yeah," he admitted quietly. "Please."

He fell asleep clinging to his brother's hand.

* * *

The school counselor thought it would be best if they return to normal schedule as soon as possible, but agreed that a week or two of recuperation and remedial tutoring were in order. It meant lots of free time, which Shane spent sleeping and trying to avoid overeating and discovering he was weaker than he'd been since age ten.

Hunter's room had double doors, like an airlock, and Cam took meals down three times a day. Sensei tried to talk to him and had been chased away each time. Blake tried once – which Shane thought was stupid but nobody had asked him – and whatever had gone down, neither Cam nor Sensei would let him try again.

When Shane offered, Cam asked if he was going to slit his wrists while he was at it.

"I'm not even going to pretend that you have any judgment on this," Cam said. "You think that just because you waited a couple of days I'm going to forget the situation I found you in or your obsessing over him the first day back?"

"I believe you have adequately expressed your concern, Cameron," said Sensei evenly.

Cam glared at him.

"Let's have a walk, Shane."

They didn't walk very far. Shane still tired easily, and the point was just to get out of range of Cam's spy net.

"These three weeks have been very hard on Cam also," said Sensei after Shane settled down, back against a rock. "Not as hard as they had been for you, of course, but…"

"But he'd lock us in padded rooms to protect us if he thought he could get away with it," Shane interrupted him. "Yeah, I get that, Sensei. And I get why he just flipped out over this, but I might be the only person Hunter might talk to."

"Then we are in agreement," said Sensei in a smooth tone that, in Shane's experience, meant trouble. "Your suggestion has merit, but also entails a great personal risk."

"Sensei, come on. Cam has five cameras down there and a vent attached to a sleeping gas tank just in case. This is home turf, and he's not going to be stupid enough to start hitting me now."

"It is not the physical threat I am worried about."

"Sensei – "

"Why are you so intent on this, Shane?"

"We can't just leave him there!" Shane took a deep breath. "He's supposed to be one of us. If he didn't break through the memory warp on his own by now then he's not going to. He needs help, and we don't really have an alternative."

"That is well and true, Shane," said Sensei, and Shane hated that tone. "And you are, quite possibly, the only person Hunter would talk to. However, this does not necessarily mean that he will listen to you."

"Still the best chance."

"Shane, do you understand why this is a dangerous idea?"

"Yes, but – "

"I won't let you face this risk unless I am absolutely certain that you understand what it is."

Shane was silent for a while.

"You think he'll have me switch sides," he finally said, voice low. "He won't, Sensei. It won't happen. There's no way he can convince me you killed his parents in cold blood, and this is what it comes down to."

It was a long moment before Sensei sighed. "Cam will come to assess the risk more rationally with time," he said. "As will all of you. In the meantime, Shane, for the peace of my mind and the safety of yours – " he turned to face Shane fully, " – do try to talk more than you have so far."

* * *

The first time he'd gone down to talk to Hunter went badly. Hunter would not even look at him, sat with his face to the wall and his back to the door and said nothing. Shane tried to establish conversation for about ten minutes before lapsing into silence, and fled barely a minute after.

Afterwards at the control room Tori tried to yell herself hoarse at Shane until Blake interrupted, pleading for his brother to not be written off as a lost cause, and then she really did yell herself hoarse at him. Between the three of them they upset Dustin almost to tears and somehow it was Marah who picked up and supplied tissues and aspirin and got everyone but Tori to consent to being hugged.

Tori preferred people's hands where she could see them.

* * *

The second time, the next day, was a little better. He pissed Hunter off enough to talk back.

"Oh, sure, Watanabe is so much more believable," he sneered. "You do know he slaughtered two clans just because of _allegations_ of Dark Ninja activity. More likely they just didn't like the Wind hegemony. Or do they not teach you that here at the House of Watanabe?"

"At the Mountain of Lost Ninjas – "

"We were in the same room with a powerful ninja artifact and two dueling ninja masters. It's a surprise any of us remember anything. Considering how high energy had to be flying there, there's a higher chance that if all of you remember the same version then it's the fake one."

"You have an answer for everything, don't you?"

"Don't you?"

Only then, only when Hunter's voice dropped from a near-shout to a tone just too soft to be a growl, did Shane notice how close they were standing, almost in each other's faces. All he had to do was –

He should turn away, he knew, but he couldn't afford to be the first to break eye contact.

It was what he told Sensei in the debriefing. Not that the situation didn't give him goosebumps, he added so that Sensei wouldn't think he was refusing to deal. Not that he didn't have something like a flashback, for a moment there. But he stood up to Hunter and they had an idea what kind of delusion Hunter had built to make lies and truth stick together and that was good, wasn't it?

* * *

The third day Hunter opened conversation by asking after Shane's family, and Shane damn near bolted. He stuck around and made small talk anyway, getting Hunter to share a few Academy stories of his own. Climbing upstairs an hour later, Shane had already almost managed to make himself forget that he played it normal and answered even before the panic response quieted.

Sensei was the only one in the control room. Shane didn't ask if he'd kicked everyone else out or if they'd excused themselves. He didn't want to know and anyway it didn't matter.

They'd come around in time.

* * *

His waking up with a screaming nightmare was becoming routine. So was Parker being the one to come. It was the first time Parker asked after what he'd heard, though.

"Who's Hunter?"

Shane stopped breathing, stopped moving.

"Was he – there, with you? You never mentioned him, but…"

It made an easy serve for a passable lie. "Yeah," Shane breathed out. "He's - Blake's brother, he – "

"Tori's boyfriend? I didn't know he has a brother."

"Yeah, his big brother." Shane shifted. "He was hurt. Worst of us." He hadn't even lied yet.

"Is he still unconscious?"

Shane nodded.

"I wish you'd talk more."

"It's been only a week, Parker. Can I put some distance in first?"

Parker hugged his shoulder briefly. "Obviously. But I'll have to return to San Diego soon, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you're not likely to talk to Mom or Dad."

Shane snorted quietly. "Sensei's keeping an eye out," he said after a moment. "He's cool."

"That's good." But Parker had never met Sensei, didn't know that he'd had years of handling post-mission ninjas behind him, and he didn't look all that convinced.

* * *

Blake turned out to be a good mediator. He was too miserable-looking for Cam to be terrible to, and he was working on reminding Tori that the Hunter who'd left the mesh of scars on her face – now nearly invisible to all but her – was a captive of sorts himself. Even Sensei was less heavy on their case once he was sure that they were talking at least to each other.

Blake did most of the talking. Shane felt odd, not really knowing anything about Hunter, and there could've been any of a dozen reasons why the usually-distant Blake would volunteer stories even without being prompted. Shane soaked in everything Blake would say and every little similarity between the two brothers, trying to build as complete a picture as he could.

Blake only asked a single question.

"If someone told me," he said, "That I'll have to go back there for a month but Hunter would be free, I'd sign up in a heartbeat. We're brothers, and when someone's been your only family for ten years then "normal" gets redefined. What I don't get is why you're putting yourself through this."

He didn't look at Shane like he was insane. He looked at him like he was dying.

"The day everything went to hell," Shane answered, the same answer he'd given to Sensei when he'd pushed, "When I thought that you were all dead, I almost broke then and there. It meant nothing mattered, anymore. I looked away. Hunter forced me to look. And I – I thought if I could get through to him, then it wouldn't be a complete loss. Then at least one other person got through. Afterwards I found out that you were still alive, but… I guess it got stuck in my head. I just can't give up on this one. I can't."

"That's a hell of a sense of duty."

Shane shrugged.

"Partial truths work better than lies, but you still need to get better at this."

"What the – "

The dry cynicism bled right through the practiced innocent charm of Blake's smile. "You Wind ninjas have been consorting with samurais for too long. Your school forgot how much of the Ninja Way is about lies and deceit. The earnestness is charming."

Shane scoffed and said, before thinking it through, "You two are brothers, all right."

"I mean it," said Blake.

He sounded genuine; Shane was experienced enough to think it was real, but he wouldn't have bet anything important on it.

"Tori's like that, too," Blake continued. "She hasn't got a clue how transparent she is, or how off-balance it makes me half the time."

"That," Shane told him, "Is the best idea I've heard in a really long time."

* * *

He hadn't known he used to square his shoulders and tuck his chin whenever the inner doors to Hunter's room slid open. He'd watched the vids in debriefing, and he hadn't noticed that, or how his throat muscles reacted differently to give his voice a slightly different cadence. He hadn't noticed any of the hundred ways he tried to communicate that this wasn't Lothor's prison until he had to not do any of that. The aborted gestures weren't the only thing Shane hadn't noticed – had refused to notice – before.

It didn't matter whose prison they were standing in if Hunter's eyes flicked over him like that, assessing, too quick for Shane to know what he saw and what he thought of it.

He felt sick to his stomach with Hunter's masked-with-cynicism delight over the beach ball.

"Only thing I could get Cam to declare harmless," Shane said. "I'm working on getting some crosswords through, but he seems to think there are twelve different ways to kill someone with a pen."

"Someone's been raised a ninja," said Hunter dryly. "Apparently good guys can brain also." He tossed Shane the ball. "C'mon, let's play catch."

The upside of playing catch was that it made them both laugh. The downside was that Shane tired easily.

"You have no stamina."

"And whose fault is that?"

Hunter shook his head. "Sit down, Shane."

"You think – "

"Don't be daft." And he put his hand on Shane's shoulder and pushed him down.

There were cameras covering every square inch of the room, and there were Sensei and the Rangers in the control room watching and half of them thought he was insane, and Hunter didn't have to apply more than the minimal initial pressure to get Shane to slide down the wall. It was just that he hadn't expected it –

But he didn't even complete that thought before Hunter settled next to him, mimicking his posture, so close that if Shane relaxed his shoulders they would touch. He hadn't been so close to Hunter since the rescue and Hunter hadn't touched him since Cam had woken both of them up, and he wanted nothing more than to put his head down on Hunter's shoulder as the portcullis of exhaustion slammed down and the past ten days caught up with him like a hit to the face.

He didn't breathe for a little more than three seconds as he resisted the urge.

* * *

Climbing the stairs back to the control room felt like crossing between worlds. He put his palm against the walls a few time, not so much to steady himself but to feel the rough solidness of it. He was tempted to stop for a moment and rest his head against the cool rock, but the guys had been known to track him upstairs and the habit of not giving them excess reasons to worry was already ingrained. He was probably in trouble already. Cam had kept his mouth shut about Shane having been found sleeping naked in Hunter's bed – as if Shane had known, as if Cam understood what it had been like – but if he'd been given reason to think things were going that way, well.

The control room was utterly silent as he stepped in. Sensei, the four other Rangers and Marah were all there. And they were all looking at him.

Shane shifted uncomfortably.

"That good-guys line," said Blake. "I couldn't be sure from the video. Do you think it was calculated, or real?"

Shane frowned, trying to recall what Blake was talking about.

"Right at the beginning," said Dustin. "You said something about Cam hating pens – "

Oh, that.

"I don't – " Cam began.

"I don't think he thought about it," said Shane. "So I guess it was real, yeah. Why?" he asked, as a perceptible ripple of excitement passed through the group by Cam's chair.

"Because," Blake said, a grin breaking over his face, "He referred to us as the good guys. And you and me both agree that it wasn't just to humor you. Which means this is the first real breakthrough."

It wasn't that he didn't understand what Blake was saying, what made Dustin grin and Marah sniff a little. He did. He was just so tired. It was his idea and his plan and finally they believed him, but it was weirdly hard to remember why it mattered so much.

Tori got up. She, like the others, was glowing, and it was the most she'd looked like herself since the nightmare started. Her steps were small, almost hesitant – was it she who was afraid, or did she think he'd startle? – but then she hugged him with full force, first time she'd reached unreservedly to anyone since the return, and Shane swallowed a shudder and hugged her back just as fierce.

It almost made it worth it.

* * *

He didn't like school. At least Dustin was happier, so many hours a day of seeing people to be taken as if for granted.

* * *

Parker had to return to San Diego two days after the return to school. He'd seen Shane off in the morning, but he wasn't going to be there in the evening. Walking to the bus stop that morning was like climbing a rock for the third day straight without a pause. Someone was going to die if he left, if he allowed Parker to leave: it wasn't true but knowing that only made it possible to get to the stop, to get on the bus and bite his lip, but it wasn't enough to undo the dread.

* * *

He had never liked school and he liked it even less with half the people treating him as if he was made of glass. It wasn't even real, just one big dollhouse for people who had no idea keeping an eye on so many other people who will never have an idea, and he was so angry with the pointless waste of time. He considered ditching classes, but making it through turned out to be just another thing meditation could be good for.

Shane's list of things meditation made sufferable was getting pretty long.

He did his best to get back to the way things were: pass notes in class, talk to people on recess and punch shoulders in jest. Sometimes he was in the moment and that was great, even if things were weird and uncomfortable. Most of the time it was like watching from a corner within his head, and Hunter's voice ran a commentary. He'd ignore him, except that Hunter was usually right and listening to him made it easier to handle situations.

It meant more lies, but that just meant he had some room to breathe in.

* * *

Cam consented to kid-safe markers, Shane sat next to Hunter and did the crosswords with him and only Sensei and Blake bothered to supervise the monitors. It could have been all good; it looked that way most of the time, except for those moments the walls felt so close that all Shane had to do with reach out and touch them, or when Hunter smiled at him and it was pointless to try and hide from the people who knew you that well.

Just like hitting walls was. It gave you bruises and wasted energy and walls never budged. The worst of it was that if you kept hitting the wall long enough you grew so tired that you leaned on it for support. That having your back against a wall was a good thing had given Shane a few hours of headache in Lothor's prison. Then he was just glad that he had something solid to hold on to.

Talking to Hunter, arguing over the way things had happened and what were washable markers washable from, made him look for something to steady himself. So did anything he was doing, if he thought about it. The safest thing to do was to keep going and never ever touch anything, even if it was freefalling most of the time. Shane had seen for a moment what resting felt like and if he ever let go it would be game over.

He had enough will to not reach out. When Hunter put his hand on Shane's shoulder and spun him so they faced Shane forgot that the doors were only a couple of feet behind him and a few steps would get him away. Hunter wasn't even holding him strongly: just a touch, just an absolute reminder that he was there.

There was no thinking with Hunter this close. Shane couldn't step aside or look away. Hunter was closing the distance, so slowly, and all Shane felt was a mix of resignation and excitement.

But the walls were stone, and daylight was coming in through a shaft, and –

He didn't move his lips and he said it quietly as he could, so that it wouldn't be picked up: "Sensei's in the control room."

Hunter barely showed an acknowledgement of the warning except the faintest amusement in his eyes, the lightest twitch of the curve of his mouth. He leaned in almost as if there hadn't been a change in plans, laying his cheek against Shane's.

He whispered something and the words took forever to decipher because that was Hunter's mouth right by his ear, Hunter's breath warm and moist on his skin.

"All right, then."

* * *

Blake was the only one in the control room. There was no question as to whether he'd seen, and whether he'd understood. Blake was good at masking his emotions, but Shane had been learning from someone better. The only question was whether or not Sensei had seen.

"Oh, Sensei left earlier," Blake said as Shane's eyes flicked around the room, and Shane knew that _earlier_ meant _before_. "Going outside?"

"Yeah."

Going outside was routine. Cam was slightly less paranoid than he'd been, but he wasn't going to make Ninja Ops's surveillance less airtight anytime soon.

Blake put a considerable distance between them and the bunker's entrance before turning around and yelling at Shane, "What the hell was that, Shane?"

Shane let him rave on. Blake was the one person who wouldn't turn in him in. Blake wanted his brother back and Shane was still the only person with a better chance than a snowball in hell, and telling anyone would ruin that.

"Shane?" Blake sounded young all of a sudden, and afraid, and it made Shane collect himself enough to pay attention.

"Yeah," he said. His voice sounded rough and bruised. "Sorry."

Blake was young, which was easy to forget. The youngest of them. God, he was letting them all down –

Blake hugging him was completely unexpected. Shane had no idea what to do with that, and for a few moments of airtime he couldn't even manage the instinctive reaction of hugging Blake back. Then, gradually, Shane began to feel things again and he reached up and held on.

When Blake pulled back his face was wet. He looked at Shane searchingly and his expression relaxed the tiniest bit. "Okay, at least you look like yourself again. Don't scare me like that again."

"What, I didn't, earlier?"

"No, you didn't." Blake was earnest. "You looked like – " He made an aborted gesture with his hand, fear flicking across his expression. "Don't scare me like that again," he repeated.

"Kind of hard when I don't know what's coming."

"Shane, I rewatched that five times in the time it took you to get upstairs. You could've stepped back. You could've –"

"No, I really couldn't." He shouldn't admit that.

"Yeah, that's what worrying me," Blake told him. "Hunter can get in people's heads even without the props, and you're just his type."

This startled Shane. "What?"

Blake's lips tightened. "He always picks the one that'll put up the most fight. Couple of weeks later they're wrapped around his finger, and a week after that he dumps them. He's been doing it since he realized he could." Watching Blake's expression was like watching a tower crumble. "Shane – tell me you're not actually in love with him."

Shane looked away.

Blake shook him and Shane batted off his hand without thinking.

"You can't let him win," Blake said hotly. "If you are – if you really are – then you mustn't let him win."

There, like that: another serve for another excuse. "It doesn't work like that," said Shane. He knew his weariness was audible. "It's not sum-zero. We're both winning or we're both losing. And I'm not going to lose."

Blake looked at him for a long moment. "I really hope so."

* * *

Hunter didn't try again. He didn't have to. He could end the game whenever he wanted and they both knew it. It seemed to be enough for Hunter, who was content to not tease Shane anymore.

It seemed to Shane that this was worse than having to turn away time and time again.

The others kept finding signs of Hunter edging closer to remembering. Shane nodded if it was believable and shrugged if it was far-fetched. Blake didn't ask for his opinion anymore, but no one seemed to notice. They were happy with the perceived progress.

There was no reason for Shane to do it. No reason at all. He could've made an excuse or a few if he needed to but the people who knew to ask never did. He had no reason to justify it to himself, he just said, "Let me tell you this story just one more time," and Hunter had to have seen – of course – because he stayed right where he was and only stretched his legs forward, and Shane lay down on his back and put his head in Hunter's lap. Hunter's hands settled on him, one hand on his head and one on his arm and Shane closed his eyes.

This was peace. He'd forgotten.

He started with being late, getting their asses kicked and being threatened with expulsion by Sensei. He'd always begun the story at a later point but well, this was different. He told of the elderly couple and their car, and the Academy being gone. Finding Cam in the rubble; the morphers. He skimmed over the early aliens to Dustin skipping practice to show up at Storm Chargers with new friends in tow. He didn't tell of the next few days like he now knew they had happened but the way it had all seemed then, naïve, a series of coincidences, until they stepped into Ninja Ops to find their rival Rangers were already there and Hunter and Blake had revealed their identities.

He went through every little detail of the chase up the mountain, Cam freaking out and Tori's guilt and Shane so busy keeping it all together that there wasn't even room to know how worried sick he was, and only very little room for anger. The cave, the awe at the ghosts, terror at Lothor's presence, Hunter reacting faster than anyone and saving the day.

Tori pining for Blake for two weeks.

Crushing disappointment as the Thunder zords showed up to help the other side.

He would've given up on them if not for Tori.

The chase across the island, realizing that something was terribly wrong and that Tori was right –

Relief like a new skateboard flip when the memory warp broke –

And the goddamn beam shooting out of the sky and Hunter pushing Blake out of the way and Choobo and they'd lost Hunter. Trying to handle Blake at first, and the frustrating and scared hours of the search until they finally ran into him, and Blake willingly demorphing –

Hunter's hand in his hair stilled. Shane paused. There was nothing more to tell, anyway. Hunter knew what came after. Shane opened his eyes.

Hunter was leaning down, and Shane had no intention of moving.

Neither of them knew that Cam and Blake had been at the door for half that time, and that Sensei had just ordered them in.

Hunter's pupils constricted suddenly and Shane knew something was wrong even before Hunter's back arched– Shane had to get back up fast as Hunter's knees rose – head slamming into the wall as he screamed.

And screamed.

And when he fell silent, there was no doubt that he knew.

It was probably a good thing that Blake and Cam were there. In those moments Shane was still too much in shock to question their presence, and later, already knowing the answer, he never asked; they didn't bring it up either. He'd seen Tori and Dustin arriving – only Dustin would just run up and reach for Hunter when even Blake barely dared – and then Shane left and wandered the hallways until the first bathroom he found.

It was Marah who found him there, crying.


	3. Neither the Day nor the Hour

_1. No warnings for this chapter. Also, yes, this story complete._

_2. Title from Matthiew 25:13. Moto, as usual, from the Lord's Prayer.  
_

_3. Thanks: to Camille and Mara, friends and beta readers._

* * *

**3. Neither the Day nor the Hour**

_"As we forgive those who trespass against us"

* * *

_

Tori had to have let herself in. He hadn't heard her, and his parents weren't home. She hesitated for a moment at the door to his room without turning on the light, perhaps giving him a moment to acknowledge her, and then stepped in and sat down on the carpet beside him, leaning against the bed.

"Hi," she said softly.

He said nothing.

"There are all kinds of prisons," she said, "Plenty of kinds of hell. We deal with it best we can. None of us are perfect – or gods – so when it's over, it feels like everything's messed up and nothing will ever be all right. I know. I had my night of hell after Cam broke us out. Dustin had, too. You just didn't break out then, is all."

He turned his head towards her.

"There are all kinds of hell," she repeated. "I guess you carried yours within you for the last forty days. I'm sorry!" The words burst out of her.

He looked away.

"These past couple of weeks, it's like you weren't even there, and I kept trying – we're all going through different things but the rest of us, we just clung to each other but you just kept – " She was breathing hard. "Slipping, just slipping – no, it was like you keep disappearing right in front of my eyes only you're still there and it's like – do you know what that's like? And sometimes, the other times, I'd feel ashamed for doubting you and I'd feel ashamed for being this messed up because you were just perfect. The more the middle ground disappeared the more I figured you were probably fine and I was just projecting. This is what _I_ get for wanting to believe, huh?"

There was a sting to her words that said there was more to them, but he was too tired to follow.

She shifted, then stilled. Shifted, moved her arm, then stilled again. Finally, as if moving cost pain or as if she was terrified, she reached out and placed her palm flat against his heart, a strange and not quite Tori-like gesture. "Please, Shane, just say something. Anything."

She was crying, he realized. Had he missed that in the darkness?

But he had no words. He tried to find some for her, opened his mouth in hope it would help to gouge some out, but there were just none. He shook his head.

"I know," she whispered. "It's like not being, isn't it?"

He started. "You said that." The words tumbled out of the emptiness. "You said we're already dead. In…" he stumbled on the word. "Hallucinations."

She didn't even flinch. "I guess we kind of did."

"Don't say that."

He had no idea how she'd react but he couldn't see her hurting, so he pulled her in. She clutched at his shirt like he might disappear.

Maybe he had.

* * *

Tori put herself between him and everyone else for the first night and day. He hadn't kicked her out at first because he was too damn tired, then because it would've made her miserable, and later because it was easier to have her talk to his parents or Miss Ellison from the school. It had taken him longer to say "Thanks," and mean it, to realize that she somehow made him feel less alone in a way that had nothing to do with her skipping school with him for a day and hanging around.

It felt weird, working that one out; kind of like turning his neck after being fixed at a single angle for a long time.

* * *

He wasn't sure if Sensei kicked everyone out for three days or if it just happened that way. Later Cam said that with the exception of Dustin – who dropped by to keep Marah company, for which Cam was grateful – none of the others initiated contact beyond the mandatory daily "Still alive" calls. Dustin was also the one who suggested they all meet for pizza the evening before training resumed, but nobody took him up on it.

The first training session didn't go too badly. They were all recovering faster than any normal doctor would've expected – thank goodness for morphers – nobody went even close to having a panic attack and nobody lost their temper. That right there said a lot for how far from any perceived edge they were. If things stayed that way they'd be out of remedial and back to progress in a couple of weeks; and if Lothor attacked before then, well, they'd just have to morph right away and they'd probably be fine. They could trust each other to watch their backs in a fight and that was the only important thing that morphing alone couldn't give them.

Hunter wouldn't talk to anyone but Blake, except for Sensei asking a direct question. Cam considered him with distrust, Tori ignored him and Marah had made a few feeble attempts to be friendly, which Hunter flinched back from. Dustin kept sneaking looks, as if he wanted to follow Marah's example but didn't quite dare, yet. Hunter was cold and distant and removed, and more than anything he reminded Shane of the proverbial elephant in the china shop, trying to make it to the door.

Hunter hadn't so much as looked at Shane; not that Shane was so great about eye contact. He knew exactly when he started to try and make nice because Tori gave him a Look. Shane's first instinct was to snap at her and return his attention to Hunter.

He almost had. He'd already frowned at her and turned his head. Hunter was flatly ignoring him, though, and that had given Shane the few seconds he needed to catch up.

Forcing himself to not focus on Hunter was ridiculously difficult and he felt drained for hours after, but it was worth it just to know that he could.

* * *

Life was beginning to feel a lot more normal. Four weeks after the return they were getting a lot less weird looks, and people were beginning to treat them more regularly. It probably helped that they looked a lot more normal, too. Sometimes he even acted on old routines without conscious thought, and moments when he actually felt present were becoming the norm rather than the exception.

Things weren't exactly the same. The lot of them still hung out at Storm Chargers but, with the exception of Dustin and Blake, stuck to the alcove and to themselves. Dustin, Tori and he also hardly ever shared lunches with others at school. Non-Rangers were a bit like butterflies: colourful and fun and important to protect, even if you didn't have a lot in common with them other than breathing air.

He was still keeping later hours at the skate ramp. It wasn't because it was less crowded. He just got to like it better in the late afternoon, deep gold light turning into purple-grey shadows. He would've stayed longer after dark, but his parents got worried if he wasn't home when they returned from work. It wasn't that he had a problem with full daylight, like Tori tried to claim a few times. He handled full daylight just fine at school and practice. It was just that the semi-darkness still felt safer, somehow.

* * *

Then one night he woke up from a nightmare and he couldn't breathe in the darkness. It took him several gulping breaths to remember that the reading light was just there, and then a few more seconds to be able to reach for it. The small lamp didn't flood the room with light, but it was enough to allow him to calm down enough to get up and turn on the main light.

It had to be the surprise on top of the post-nightmare adrenaline surge that put him in a combat-like assessing mode as he walked back to the bed. The nightmare was one of the usual – confusion and aching and the haze that was true hunger. The high alertness was – no, not the same at all, he realized as he sat down on the bed cross-legged and gathered the blanket at his knees. He always woke up terrified and then the dim streetlight through the blinds soothed him enough he could sleep again. This time he only got scared when he woke up somewhere dark.

The back of his hands were tingling with phantom bruises.

He remembered. Shane folded into himself, nails digging into his palms as he held back from hitting or throwing things. The first days of captivity, when he still hadn't known what to expect; he'd been so full of rage all of the time, and he had no idea that he had needed to conserve strength. He'd hit the walls, then, until he could barely move his fingers; he'd hated the constant darkness, had felt that it was pressing down on him; he could barely see and he couldn't stand it.

He'd forgotten since.

It took almost an hour until he calmed down enough to consider trying to fall asleep again. The night light his mom had dug out right after the return was still on his desk. He plugged it in first.

* * *

The yo-yo motion of it just made him snap more. There were times he couldn't stand the sight of Hunter and had to remind himself that the person who angered him so was effectively dead, and there were times he wanted to reach for Hunter so much that the effort to do anything else gave him tension headaches. Dustin and Marah were lifesavers: Dustin by providing a social link between the Thunders and the Winds and Marah simply by being her peppy self.

They shouldn't have been able to function as a team like that but, a few scuffles later, it turned out that they could. The guys trusted each other to watch their backs, and that turned out to be the only substantial thing. It was just kelzacks, anyway, nothing that demanded a full team effort.

The first time he had an actual battle on this hands – Kapri and some kelzacks here, Zurgane there, more kelzacks in the middle – he only realized he should've freaked out after they were all safely back in Ops. He had to send everyone out on the field this time, even Cam, he had next to no live intel to work with and most of his team on different scenes than himself. He'd done it effectively blind and it worked. Training, Ranger instinct and adrenaline response had all been contributing factors but, he realized as Sensei waited for them to cool off so they could start the debriefing, there was no way they could've done it – that he could've done it – unless he could predict his team.

It made sense with Tori whom he'd known since fourth grade and with Dustin with whom he'd been friends since freshman year, with rabidly dependable Cam and even somehow with Blake, who was awkwardly trying to be Shane's right hand.

And then there was Hunter, who Shane did not know at all.

* * *

Two days later he and Tori picked up Dustin and the Bradleys from the track on the way to the daily practice. They were early, and got to watch Dustin's last few laps. Hunter was holding the stopwatch but he wasn't watching it. Instead he was observing Dustin with only the slightest frown of concentration and an eerily familiar intensity.

It made Shane's stomach turn. Dustin had been Blake's and Hunter's first target, back when the two were bent on killing Sensei and tried to worm their way into the confidence of the Winds. They were faster and better and had heavier bikes, and Dustin adored them from the first moment. He'd been halfway to hero-worshipping Hunter even before Hunter started offering advice.

Last lap over. Cloud of dust. Blake turned Hunter's hand to check the stopwatch and let out a whoop of joy. It wasn't Blake Dustin's smile went to –

Shane could tell the exact second and the exact angle of Hunter's return smile.

It was still Hunter.

Dustin was talking a mile a minute as he walked his bike. Blake ended up taking the bike from him, as Dustin kept gesturing with his hands. Hunter was taller than either of them and much more sedate. The sight of the three of them should have been something to be glad about – Dustin unafraid, Blake off guard, Hunter attempting to engage.

Shane focused on breathing, trying to narrow things down to that, because it was still Hunter, and now that Shane had realized it he couldn't make it go away.

"Shane?"

He looked down at Tori. Her eyes were wide.

"You're doing it again," she told him. "What's wrong?"

He wanted to say, _If he hurts Dustin I'll kill him,_ but that was not an option for a number of reasons, one of them being that Hunter was not the only thing that did not change.

Shane shook his head.

* * *

He ignored Hunter through the car ride. He ignored Hunter through practice. He completely failed to ignore Hunter the next day at Storm Chargers, but each time Hunter just froze up momentarily and then went on as Shane did not lash out at him.

Blake pulled him aside so smoothly that Shane didn't get what was going on until they were at the back of Tori's van and instead of digging through for the jacket he claimed to have lost, Blake turned to him and asked: "Okay, what's going on?"

"What do you mean, what's going on?"

Blake crossed his arms and then let them down again self-consciously. "You're pissed off," he said.

Shane was going to deny it, but. "Of course I am! He's pulling the same shit all over again."

"You mean Hunter."

"Yes!" Shane looked aside, trying to get his breath under control. Good thing they had the van's doors for a cover – which Blake probably had planned. Damn Thunders. "He's doing it on purpose," he spat out: "Coaching Dustin, being polite to Cam – he's playing them."

"He's fitting in on the team, Shane. It's a good thing."

"It's fake through and through and you know it same as I do. One big calculated show."

Blake's expression barely twisted, but his eyes were burning. "He's not going to turn on us again."

"I didn't say that."

Blake eyed him warily. "Sure didn't sound like it."

"There's a world of difference between – " Shane struggled, trying to get it to make sense outside of his head. "Do I think he's going to turn right around and sell us all to Lothor? No. Do I think that – jeez, Blake." Shane refused the instinct to swallow, refused to display any sign of discomfort besides what his voice had already betrayed. "The only difference is that he doesn't think he has a reason to."

Blake's expression changed subtly, not so much relaxing as – lightening, perhaps, or maybe just becoming more withdrawn. "Oh," he said quietly, looking away.

"'Oh,' what?" asked Shane.

"If you're worried about Hunter baiting any of the guys," said Blake carefully, still looking sideways. "I don't think he will. He's trying to make it easier to work as a team, to get along." He returned his gaze, meeting Shane's eyes. "Give him time. It'll become real; it just takes time to learn. Come on, Shane," he added. "You used to know this."

Shane shook his head. "I didn't – damn it, Blake – " He closed his eyes.

"Yeah," Blake said quietly. "Okay."

* * *

Things were a mess after that, but it took Shane a while to realize it. There were the times he ignored Hunter and Hunter ignored him right back; they managed to exchange full sentences if they were in battle, and the situation was getting under Shane's skin a little less than it used to. And then were times, when Shane couldn't keep his mouth shut and kept prodding and snapping and – though he denied it to Tori – trying to push Hunter into blowing up. The muscles of Hunter's jaw would twitch and he'd turn away, and most of the time that was all. Except for the other times, when Hunter would talk right back – not with the same intensity, not with the same venom – and Shane returned the serve every single time. Shane could predict neither his own nor Hunter's reactions, and it was getting impossible to tell when they'd be able to get through training or just the afternoon safely.

* * *

At first Hunter had only sparred against Cam, who was the fastest and most experienced of them, though he'd given in to Blake's insistence once he'd been medically cleared. Dustin volunteered at about the same time Shane started making a point, and Sensei started insisting on pitting Shane and Hunter against each other after Hunter started dishing the attitude back.

The first time was a disaster. Hunter was visibly tense and shrinking back, Shane had his heart in his throat and when he finally managed to throw a punch Hunter practically walked into it. Rather than doing something reasonable like saying they'd try again tomorrow – Shane knew Sensei too well to expect him to call the experiment off altogether – Sensei just calmly told them to try again. They didn't break any bones that day, but for the first three days they didn't get past the level of first-quarter students either.

More than anything it was like reacting to memory. Something jagged shifted, hurting or terrifying, and Shane took the kick and turned the energy around, throwing it back at Hunter, right behind the knee, stepped behind him and pulled down, hard.

Hunter didn't roll with it, didn't dodge: the same trained instinct that had Shane aim for the spine also had him pause, drag himself into being present again –

"Again," said Sensei.

"You've gotta be kidding – "

"You may take a few seconds to recover. Then again."

* * *

"Enough with the goddamn show," he hurled at Hunter, after Sensei had released them to the showers.

"Now what are you going on about?" said Hunter.

Shane turned to face him. "Oh, please," he snarled deliberately. "The not hitting back thing? The deliberately getting hit? Who do you think you're playing?"

Hunter's expression was hard. His eyes were the usual storm. "Go get a clue, Shane."

"What do you think you're going to gain from this, huh, Hunter? What kind of fascinating experiment is it now?"

"You're – " Hunter shook his head and half-turned. "I'm not having this discussion."

"If you think you get to – "

"Damn it, Shane, this is not all one big game!"

"Look who's talking."

Hunter turned towards him again. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

"You're really lousy at playing meek, Hunter."

Hunter just stared at him for a long moment, then shook his head and walked to the shower stool.

Shane let him get out of sight.

* * *

Hunter made an effort to defend himself after that. Five days later, he initiated an offensive. A turning kick like a Mack truck at point-blank, the same damn maneuver that had been Hunter's winning token all along and that none of them could properly deflect, yet. Except that Shane somehow did – only barely, only just, but it was the longest he'd ever lasted against Hunter in full steam. The first few minutes it was all he could do to stay on his feet, and then maybe he started making sense of the pattern because one or two of his return blows almost connected.

They were being too violent, not nearly restrained enough. It wasn't so much a spar as a barely controlled brawl, but Sensei hadn't called them off.

It was Hunter who did, in a way: Shane managed to get through and grab a hold on Hunter's shirt, but Hunter forced his hand off and turned them both around and a few steps sideways, and it was a good thing there was a lot of distance between them and the wall –

And then Hunter let go and turned around, and the second it took Shane to recover from the near-stumble and look up was enough that he only caught sight of Hunter's back as he walked out.

* * *

He found Hunter down the tunnel of a hallway, palms flat against the wall and elbows locked straight.

"You need to get better than that," said Hunter, looking firmly at the wall and getting the words in a fraction of second before Shane. "You're the one I'm counting on, damn it."

He pushed himself sharply, turned away. "I'll shower at home."

Shane would've tried to stop him, if he could make anything add up.

He threw up later.

* * *

Sensei still tried to get them to spar together. Their vehement refusal was not rehearsed.

* * *

It took a week to get Hunter away from their fellow Rangers, Cam's cameras and random civilians. Shane closed the back room's door softly, but Hunter heard it and turned around anyway.

"What the hell does that mean, 'the one you're counting on'?" demanded Shane.

"You know exactly what that means," shot back Hunter.

He radiated tension, which was reasonable considering that Shane was advancing on him, he hasn't started retreating yet, and there were a couple dozen civilians and two Rangers just down the hall.

"No, actually I don't. So why don't you enlighten me?"

A muscle in Hunter's jaw spasmed. "Dustin and Tori aren't going to get that good, at least not fast enough. And Blake's never gonna be able to."

Shane raised his eyebrows deliberately. "Should I be on the lookout? The airlock room is still there. You can move in anytime you want."

Hunter shook his head once, sharply. "No."

"So what the hell are you playing at now?"

Hunter took half a step forward. "I'm not playing!" He looked aside, breathing heavily. "Well, excuse me if I'm – I'm just worried, okay? If anything ever happens again – "

"Why sh…"

"No, there is nothing concrete, okay? Just me freaking out over knowing that I can take the team out before you know it, because – I don't know, maybe because I've done it before?"

Hunter was still breathing heavily, pupils distinctly dilated. Shane's anger was fast turning into something else, so he clung to it.

"It's just fear and you know it. Move on instead of spinning it into a new game."

Hunter's expression twisted, still too complex to read. "Was that advice? Practical and involved team leader checking up on his team? God _damn_ it, Shane!" And Hunter spun around, nearly trapping Shane against the shelves. "That's it, something scares me so I'm not the Big Bad Wolf anymore?"

Hunter. Close. In his face. Shane's pulse raced, two or three beats per second. "Step back."

"Just making a point," said Hunter through gritted teeth.

"I said, step back."

And Hunter did, stepping away and turning back sharply, leaning against the shelves on the other side of the aisle, shoulders hunched. "Damn it," he whispered, barely audible. "Fuck."

"And if you're gonna try and be supportive and understanding again," he added after a few seconds, "I'm gonna knock a few teeth out, just as a reminder that you don't get to pull this protective act with me. Not with me."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, please. Because everyone but Dustin isn't doing it on purpose whenever they think you need cheering up, just look small and miserable and you're pulling right up."

Shane swallowed back six or eight scathing retorts in the first four and a half seconds, and then took ten more to come up with something that hopefully wouldn't start a fight.

"Why not Cam?"

Hunter's breathing relaxed slowly, though it probably wouldn't return to normal anytime soon. "Yeah, Cam's paranoid, all right" he said. "But he's too obviously dangerous: too smart, too good at this. He's the first person to take out if taking out this team."

"Or the one person who can keep track of everyone and everything and call the shots simultaneously," said Shane. His mouth was dry. "Especially if…"

"I'm trying to believe you'll…" Hunter's lips twisted. "Not quite there yet. Betting on my pride, I guess."

Shane couldn't move. He remembered – only too well – what it had felt like, the way this ended the previous time.

The way it would've ended if Hunter had not remembered.

"Better bet on yourself," he said. His voice was gruff. "You didn't go too far the first time, I don't think – "

Hunter's head snapped up. "Didn't go too far? What the – "

Shane cut him off. "Yeah, you didn't. You didn't kill Blake. You didn't maim Tori. In three weeks you didn't even come close. And you didn't – " Shane itched to look away. He forgot what it was like to have all of Hunter's focus on him; had forgotten how much intensity Hunter was truly capable of; and he had thought that it had been long enough, that it wouldn't be such a struggle to not have his words scatter like birds before a raptor. "You didn't break anything that isn't mending. You pulled back when it counted."

"It counted a lot before that," said Hunter just as quietly. "It counted all along."

"If you hadn't remembered then – " And Shane stopped, because suddenly the particular shade of darkness on Hunter's face – the sudden tension in his body – made sense. Pain.

It disappeared just as fast: almost.

"Don't you dare feel sorry for me," snarled Hunter. "This is how you lose."

"This is how I stayed alive."

Hunter was in Shane's face again in a single step, though his arms hung next to his body this time. "Don't you fucking dare," he said, voice low, halfway between rough and dangerous. "Let me in and I'll take you apart."

Shane didn't mistake that feeling for calm as he said: "You didn't last time."

"The hell – "

"Blake and Cam were at the _door,_ Hunter. What do you think I'd have done then if you attacked them?"

Hunter flinched. Shane continued, having barely paused for a beat.

"Yeah, exactly. You'd been pushing for that moment for weeks and when it finally happened? You turned right around and came back. You couldn't do it. So next time – if there's a next time, which I really hope there won't be – then my bet's on you."

Hunter was still in his space; Hunter's eyes were still on his. He'd already nearly forgotten what the shelves and boxes at his back meant, that Tori or Kelly might get worried or suspicious or both and might go looking for them.

"Or maybe," he continued, "The next time there might actually be someone who'll notice that something's wrong. Lothor didn't make up the anger, or the rest of it." _Hatred_ was the word, but Shane wasn't going to say it out loud: it was likely to make Hunter turn away. "He just made up a better reason for it."

Now that he knew that expression for pain, it was hard to mistake it for anger or disdain any more.

"You're making up excuses," whispered Hunter. "Don't – "

Shane had no idea he was going to do it until he already had, finger right by Hunter's lips.

"So the game is making sure I hate you?" he answered. "I'm not playing."

Hunter swallowed, blinked rapidly. "You should. It's not like I can believe it that you don't."

"I'm fucking mad with you. There isn't a day where I don't need to remind myself that I'm not supposed to bash your head against the wall or when I don't want to tell you to get away from anyone who's naïve enough to trust you."

"But you're standing right here. And if I…" Slowly, almost gently, Hunter raised his hand and rested his palm against Shane's cheek. "You're not punching me in the face. You're not even trying to walk away."

His breath was shallow and quick, but Shane got the words through somehow. "What good will that do?"

"Making yourself an offering?" Hunter removed Shane's hand and leaned forward, close enough that Shane could feel his breath. "Not a good idea."

"You're freaking me out on purpose." It was an effort to not break away. "I'm not letting you damn yourself."

"Can't trust you when you're saying that."

"Is there anything you trust in other than hatred and blind loyalty?"

Hunter breathing was laboured: that was good, in a way. "What the hell kind of question is that?"

"Guess so," murmured Shane. Raising his arms to hold Hunter was deliberate, and he was fast enough about it that he managed to trap him before he got what was going on. Hunter struggled for a moment – violently, wildly – and then stopped and laid his forehead on the cardboard next to Shane's head.

"That's the game plan?" he asked, voice raw and barely audible. "Make sure I'll feel even worse if I ever hurt you again?"

Shane forced his eyes to stay open. "I'm not much for games," he said. He didn't sound any better.

"Don't let me hurt you."

Shane did close his eyes at that. "I'm not going to _let_ you hurt me. But what you choose to believe, and what you do about it, those are your choices."

"I'm sorry." The words were choked, barely comprehensible. "God, Shane, I'm so sorry."

Shane turned his head, rested his forehead against Hunter's cheekbone. "Yeah," he spoke against his skin. "I know."


End file.
